You Can't Sit With Us

by Nancy Rue

  But I went straight to Coach, who was in Mrs. Zabriski’s office just off the locker room.

  “Um, what about my test?” I said.

  “We’ll have to reschedule,” he said.

  “So, when? Sir.”

  “Sir,” he said. “Wow.”

  He sounded a little bit sarcastic, but just a little. Not like he was exactly making fun of me.

  “Listen, don’t sweat it for now,” he said. “Just do your fair thing.”

  Mrs. Zabriski raised her cropped-hair head from her clipboard. “I heard you’re doing a special presentation with . . .” She snapped her fingers like she was searching for his name.

  “Colin. Yes, ma’am.”

  She dropped the clipboard on the desk, and I jumped. What now?

  “All right, that’s it,” she said. “Who are you and what have you done with Ginger Hollingberry?”

  “I’m sorry?” I said.

  “That’s a compliment,” Mrs. Z said. She waved a wiry hand at me. “Go. Do your thing.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said and hurried out.

  Behind me, I heard her say, “That is not the same kid.”

  We spent all of first period helping get the booths set up—they were fold-up walls you could hang stuff on—and Mr. Devon showed Colin and me where we would be standing for our presentation. When Colin told him about the chairs, he borrowed two big wooden cubes, painted black, from the eighth-grade drama teacher. They were way better than my kitchen table chairs. He promised we could practice with them fifth period.

  I didn’t get to meet with Lydia during lunch because Mrs. Yeats came to the cafeteria while we were eating to drill us on how to be good hosts and hostesses to the fifth-graders the next day. Basically, she told us to follow the Code and not to burp, belch, or make other disgusting noises. I guessed you didn’t get to be principal without knowing about BBAs.

  Lydia sent me a message through Mr. Devon that she would be there for tomorrow’s presentation, and that made me a whole lot less nervous. After we rehearsed with the big black cubes in the gym, with the PowerPoint going on the screen above and behind us, I wasn’t nervous at all. In fact, I couldn’t wait for it to be tomorrow.

  I actually forgot about the planned takedown by Kylie and Those Girls until I got to sixth period. We were supposed to bring in our stuff for the Spanish booth, and Kylie was perched on the front edge of Mrs. Bernstein’s desk, checking everybody off like some big important bird. Until Mrs. B made her get off.

  Kids were running to their lockers to get things they forgot and picking up stuff from the shelves to look at them—like maracas and pottery bowls and a jar of what somebody claimed were Mexican jumping beans. It was chaos, but the good kind because people were laughing and checking out each other’s stuff and saying, “That is sweet!” Well, the girls did. The boys were all trying to figure out how to get the jumping beans open.

  And then Kylie stood up on a chair and said, “Could everybody just stop talking! I can’t think!”

  Tori made a motion like she was zipping her lips closed.

  I pressed mine together, just in case.

  “Thank you,” Kylie said, even though only about half the class had actually stopped talking. “If you haven’t checked your assignment in with me, line up here.”

  “Please,” Mrs. Bernstein said. “And, Kylie, get down.”

  “I was going to,” Kylie said.

  She said something else to Mrs. Bernstein, but I didn’t hear it because there was a commotion at the door.

  “That is so cool!” Tori said.

  Shelby came in with a huge sombrero on her head and a bright blanket thing on her shoulder, which I thought the culture book said was a serape, and a big potted cactus in her arms.

  “Excelente!” Mrs. Bernstein said. “This is going to make the booth!”

  Tori started clapping and Mitch whistled, which the BBAs joined in on, and Mrs. Bernstein didn’t try to stop it. It might have been the best moment we ever had in Spanish class.

  But it obviously wasn’t a good moment for Kylie. Especially when Mrs. Bernstein put the sombrero on Kylie’s head and it came down over her eyes. It looked like the hat was wearing her, so who wouldn’t laugh?

  Kylie yanked it off and plunked it on Mrs. Bernstein’s desk and said, “I’m not wearing that in my booth.”

  “I will!” said Izzy, who had the perfect sized head for it.

  “Whatever,” Kylie said. I was surprised her head didn’t just fly right off.

  I got in line behind the soccer girls to get my map checked off. I’d drawn Mexico on a piece of white plywood my dad gave me. I colored and labeled it with the mountains and everything, and I’d even glued on small pictures in some places.

  “That’s really good,” Evelyn said. She was standing behind me with a plastic bag. A thing of Doritos peeked out the top. “I only brought food, but you . . . that’s, like, professional.”

  “So are you going to show me your thing or not?” Kylie said. “The bell’s about to ring.”

  I stepped up to her. It was the first time I’d seen her up close since class started, and now I could see tiny beads of perspiration on her upper lip and under her eyes. I didn’t think Kylie would ever sweat. Not only that, but her splashy hair was jammed behind her ears and her breath was coming out in fast huffs. She wasn’t the poster girl for cool right then.

  I turned my board around for her to see. Her eyes got wide, and then she squinted them down, and, yep, the lip curled. Nostrils blocked, the whole thing.

  “What is that?” she said.

  “Kylie,” Mrs. Bernstein said. “You are out of con—”

  “It’s a map of Mexico,” I said. I propped it against the desk. “You can go ahead and check me off.”

  I didn’t wait for her to say anything. I just turned and headed back to my desk, weaving among the people who were all having conversations with each other with their eyes. Except Mitch, who said, “Wow.”

  When I got to my seat, there was a folded piece of paper waiting for me. I looked around to see if anybody was watching, wanting me to open it.

  “I think it came from the office,” Ophelia said. “I was standing by the door and some eighth-grader brought it.”

  That should be okay then. I still opened it with only my fingertips, though. I didn’t want the words exploding at me.

  But I puffed out a breath of relief. It was from Coach Zabriski. I’ll retest you after school. Dress out and meet me at the climbing wall.

  The bell rang, and my first thought was that I should get a message to Jackson and tell him that I’d be late getting home. But really, how long could it take? And Coach said Mitch would be there . . .

  I looked up, but she and just about everybody else were gone. Except Kylie, who was in the corner being talked to by Mrs. Bernstein. They had their own wall of tension to climb.

  Okay, I decided as I left the room and headed downstairs. I could do this. If I could do a presentation in front of my dad and not be nervous about doing it for, like, two hundred kids, and if I could give Kylie the Stone Face and not get all hysterical because she acted like she hated my map—if I could do all that, I could climb this wall.

  It didn’t hit me until I was halfway into my sweats in the locker room. What if I pretended I was Samantha climbing to the Heights? Wouldn’t that make it less scary? If she could do it, so could I because, uh, I was her.

  I finished getting changed and let myself out the back door. It was strange being on the obstacle course by myself. It looked bigger and, as Mr. Devon would say, more formidable without all the other kids and Coach. But I’d done most of it. That helped.

  Come to think of it, where was Coach?

  I wished I’d brought the note out with me so I could check and make sure I was right, that it said today, after school. I was certain of it, though. So I sat on a bench we never got a chance to sit on during class and watched the cars leave the back parking lot. It was also strange to see Mr. V and
Mr. Jett and Mrs. Fickus get into their Volkswagens and SUVs. They actually had lives away from us.

  Before long, the faculty parking lot was pretty much empty and the school seemed eerie-quiet behind me. I must have made a mistake, right? Struggling not to stick the Stupid label back on myself, I went to the door to go back into the locker room.

  It was locked.

  I banged on it, but nobody came.

  Okay, double strange. Maybe I should go around to the front of the school and come back to the gym that way.

  Yeah, and what if Coach came out while I was inside and thought I’d dissed him and I’d fail the retest without even taking it?

  Something rumbled. It took me a minute to realize it was faraway thunder. The sky was darker than it usually was at this time of day. Which was, what? Four o’clock by now? Maybe later? It was hard to tell with charcoal-colored clouds blocking out the light. Yeah, I probably should take a chance and go around to the front of the school and see if there was anybody still here.

  Just as I got up from the bench, the back door opened and a guy stuck his head out. I didn’t know him. He looked like a teenager, maybe older because he had one of those almost beards that looked like dirt on his chin, and his face was harder than a middle school kid’s had a chance to get.

  “You Ginger?” he said, hardly opening his mouth.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “So, you’re supposed to do a practice run and Coach’ll be right out.”

  “But—”

  “That’s all I know.”

  “Wait!”

  But the door shut and I was still standing there in the storm-gathering dark.

  A practice run? Alone? With no spotters and—I looked over at the wall—no mats?

  I walked slowly toward it, thoughts spinning. He said Coach would be right out. Maybe a practice run meant “assess” the climb like he was always telling us to do.

  I had never actually done that. I’d never stood there and figured out where the handholds and footholds were before I tried to go up the wall. All I could ever think about was how terrified I was and how if I ever did get to the top I would probably wet my pants.

  All right then. I got to the bottom of the wall and took in a deep breath and looked up. At first, it was just a bunch of fake plaster rocks sticking out all random. But if I could just remember where they all were . . .

  I almost bopped my own self in the head. Of course I could remember. If I could memorize a whole eight-minute script, and if I could quote Tori’s sonnet right there on the spot, and if I could close my eyes and see the nasty notes and threatening letters Those Girls had dropped on me, then I could totally remember where all the handholds and the foot places were. All I had to do was study it and then get into Samantha mode.

  I got it all like a picture in my mind. Then I imagined I was wearing the cloak I would take off when I got to the top because there would be no need to hide myself anymore. Finally, I let the vision take place of Frank, well, Colin, climbing below me, and both of us having a thin, disappearing circlet on our arms, ready to save true friendship from those who would take it down.

  My mind was ready. I looked up and reached for the first handhold. I saw the next one in my head, and I found it. My feet followed. The next one and the next one—in my mind and in my hands and in my feet. Another and another. Climbing. Just like going up a ladder. One more—hands, feet, and I was there. I was at the top. I had hit the Heights.

  “I did it!” I cried out to no one. “I made it!”

  There was only one problem. I’d never gotten that high before . . . and I didn’t know how to get down.

  “Okay,” I said to myself this time. “I can do this. It’s the same going the other way, only backward. Right? I mean, right?”

  I had to study it again. I had to look.

  I did it again. I made the worst mistake. The ground was faraway and spinning. I was more terrified than I had ever been.

  I forced myself to look up, but there was nothing to see but the tops of the evergreens, disappearing into the too-soon dark of the coming storm. But I squirmed higher until I could hang onto the very top of the wall. And then I clung there, like a baby koala.

  Call for help. Yeah. Do that.

  I took a deep breath and turned my head back toward the school. I couldn’t see the whole front, but I could see all of the back, and there was only one car left in the lot, a pickup truck with ladders sticking out of it. The janitor was still here.

  “Help me!” I shouted.

  But the wind picked up my voice and carried it away from the building. I tried again and then again, over and over until nothing came out but a croak. As the sky got darker and the wind blew harder, I even tried calling out to cars passing on the street behind the school. Nobody even slowed down. If I ever got down from here, I was always going to look up when I was riding with Dad—just in case stranded kids were stuck up on walls and needed help.

  Except, who else would be clueless enough to get themselves into this situation—again?

  Dad would be home by now, and he was going to be mad and all the niceness of buying me a new dress and watching my presentation and giving me costumes was going to go away. Especially since I didn’t tell Jackson I was staying after school. Why didn’t I?

  I pressed my face into the plaster on the top of the wall. Okay, I had to get down. I couldn’t stop trying, right? Pretty soon it was going to start raining and the thunder was going to get closer. I needed to get to the bottom before that happened.

  I pawed at the plaster below with one foot and found something. I let my foot rest on it, but it slipped and I barely grabbed the top of the wall again before I fell. I’d fallen before, but not from this high. And there were mats there then. Not thick enough, but I would have traded anything for them now.

  “What am I going to do?” I said. “God, what am I going to do?”

  God. Lydia said God didn’t choose to give us hard things to handle. I’d done a fine job of that on my own. But she said God would help. She said she prayed for me and the Tribelet did. She said it might not change what was happening, but God would help me handle it.

  “Then please do,” I whispered. “Please help me now.”

  “Please, please, please,” I said as I held on tight with my hands and searched for a place with my other foot. I connected with something this time and it held. Now another one, and then I could move my hands again. Backwards from the way I went up.

  It helped to whisper, so I kept on. “Please, please . . . don’t stop trying . . . next foot . . . there it is . . . please, please . . .”

  Something wet hit the top of my head, and another drop splashed on my hand and I felt it run down my arm. How much farther could I have to go? It felt like I’d been climbing down forever.

  “Don’t look down,” I whispered. “Just keep going, please, please . . .”

  A loud whoop shattered the air and blue light flashed over me . . . and over me . . . and over me. I jerked and felt myself start to fall. I cried out, “No!” but my fingers slid away from the wall.

  All my breath left me and pain took its place, knocking into my back and my head as I slammed into the ground. I gasped, but no air came in. All I wanted to do was get up and run, but I couldn’t.

  “Don’t move,” a man’s voice said. “Just be still.”

  “We need an ambulance,” a woman said.

  I tried to tell them no.

  “Just stay calm, sweetie,” the woman said.

  “Please!”

  That was me talking.

  “We’re the police,” the woman said. “We’re here to help you.”

  “No,” I said. “I want my dad.”

  And then I started to cry.

  Chapter Sixteen

  My memory was good for some things, but I couldn’t remember much of what happened at the hospital.

  My neck was in a collar thing, and people kept shining little flashlights in my eyes and putting me in dark rooms and t
aking pictures. I did know that my dad was there, and by the time a doctor came into our little curtained cubicle, I was feeling like me again.

  “You were lucky,” the doctor said. He was little and skinny like Jackson, but his eyes were old and smart. “You came out of that fall with some bruises and scrapes and a cracked rib but no concussion and no need for stitches.”

  “I can take her home, then,” Dad said.

  Those were almost the first words he’d spoken since he got there, except for, “Are you all right?” and “Just relax. They’re going to take care of you. Relax.”

  I guessed that was Dad-speak for “We’ll talk later about what the Sam Hill you were doing up there.”

  “You can absolutely go home,” the doctor said to me. “But you need to stay quiet for a few days and take care of that rib. It’s going to hurt for a while.”

  “I can’t stay quiet tomorrow,” I said. “I have to do a presentation at school. After that, I can stay quiet.”

  The doctor looked at Dad, but Dad just said, “I’ll handle it.”

  Handle it how? No, really. I couldn’t miss the fair.

  “It’ll be a few minutes before you’re discharged,” the doctor said. “The nurse will be in.”

  The minute he’d swished out of the curtain I turned to Dad. Moving like that hurt, but I tried to cover it up.

  “Dad, please,” I said. “I have to be there tomorrow. It’s really important!”

  “Mr. Hollingberry?”

  Someone was standing outside the curtain, and I recognized her voice, only . . . it couldn’t be. Dad went to the curtain and looked out, and then he stepped back and let Mrs. Yeats in.

  I didn’t even know how I felt about that.

  “Are you all right?” she said. Everything on her face was jiggling, not just her chins.

  Dad filled her in on my injuries. I pulled the nightgown thing up over my shoulders. Nobody ever bothered to tie it in the back when they did stuff to me, and it kept trying to fall off. Like I wanted to be half naked in front of the principal. And speaking of wearing things, she didn’t have on her Gold Country vest. She was actually in jeans and a T-shirt with a softball on it.